


Steven

by YourGayDads



Series: Mating Mates [6]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, Modern AU, Oral Sex, etc etc - Freeform, is this pwp idk, or happens ahaha, the world is good and beautiful and nothing hurts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,957
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26256193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YourGayDads/pseuds/YourGayDads
Summary: James & Thomas spend a weekend sleeping, eating, and fucking.
Relationships: Captain Flint | James McGraw/Thomas Hamilton
Series: Mating Mates [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1650973
Comments: 13
Kudos: 52





	Steven

**Author's Note:**

> i scrapped this several months ago, because it’s gratuitous and corny, and just blah blah whatever, but, hey, i’d already written most of it, and every store is out of stock on brain cells and serotonin for the foreseeable future. ENJOY.

Every major development in James’s young life could be characterized by impermanence. The untimely deaths of his parents followed by that of his grandfather, and then his time in foster care. So he decided early on, earlier than anyone should have to decide, that he could only rely on himself to attain anything resembling stability. The Navy happened to offer him a way towards that. A reliable income. A clear path of promotion. A rule and reason for everything he was commanded to do. This regimentation he extended to every aspect of his life. What time he ate, what he ate, when and how much to replenish what he’d consumed; when to sleep and for how long, and what had to be done before and afterwards.

At some point, he no longer wanted and wished the way he did when he was a kid, and that was good. Whatever he was made to think was missing from his life, he concluded he didn’t need anyway. Having enough was a luxury for him already. To want more and to wish for better, he had yet to figure out what that meant to him.

Maybe it was this hand on the back of his neck and these fingers raking his hair. Maybe this soft hum of delight turned lung-filling gasp in his ear. Or maybe these nails and teeth biting into his skin. Or these quivering thighs that were flanking his sides.

Before he could find out, James awoke to find himself rutting against a wet spot on the bed. Thomas was watching him, his eyes glassy with lust — and touching himself, unhurriedly, his thumb gliding lightly over and around the head of his cock.

“Christ, James, even in your sleep, you do things to me.”

In his sleep, it was Thomas who did things to him. He thanked the darkness for hiding the blush heating his face. The last thing he wanted was for Thomas to witness to him humping a wet dream like a thirteen-year-old.

He rolled onto his side and wrapped his hand around Thomas’s to guide it leisurely up and down the shaft.

“Are you too sleepy to…”

He knew he didn’t actually have to ask since Thomas never required much encouragement to participate with vigor.

“Don’t move.”

Thomas threw his legs over the side of the bed and swooped down to reach underneath it. James scooted over to the edge to see what he was doing. 

It was the first night he was spending at Thomas’s, because Thomas usually joined him at his place. His house wasn’t at all what James was expecting, which, in retrospect, he should have expected. He’d been prepared to enter a spread in a lifestyle magazine, but instead it was a warm, lived-in space filled with mismatched furniture and miles of sagging bookshelves. Unhung art leaned against anything upright, floor pillows were strewn about on the vast sitting room rug, a large coffee table fulfilled both work and dining needs. It was a shrine to comfort and informality, two things James assumed were absent from Thomas’s youth.

And then there was Thomas’s bed, a divine monstrosity of wool and horsehair that might have possibly ruined beds for James forever.

“Sss! No peeking.” Thomas swiftly lowered the hinged lid on a leather-covered box.

James grunted and turned onto his back as Thomas ordered him. He heard the closing click of a latch and the swish of the box along the carpet. Thomas sat between James’s raised knees and began playing with his hole, his lubricated finger first rubbing and nudging, then finally pushing in to the second knuckle.

James grunted again but in approval this time.

“Mmm, I love how practiced you’ve become.”

“Practice makes — _umf_.”

The finger was replaced by the object Thomas retrieved from his pleasure chest. It was on the small side, knobbly with a bulbous head but not symmetrical in shape like a typical plug. Thomas placed an extraneous protrusion against his perineum. Settled inside of him, James started to sit up and —

“Oh- _oh_.” He flopped back down. “Oh.”

An evil little laugh rumbled in Thomas’s throat. He had been a keen student of James’s pleasure, and now his knowledge of it had easily surpassed James’s own.

He lay next to him and slapped another, different bottle of lube onto James’s chest.

James just managed to get into position over Thomas, but was suddenly wracked by a bout of shuddering. He paused with his thighs trembling between Thomas’s steadier, spread ones. When he could finally slip the head of his cock through the tight ring of muscle, his vision flashed white.

“Ohjesusfuckinggod,” he heaved out.

As he thrust in and out of Thomas, he contracted around the toy inside of him, which in turn rocked against his prostate from within and without. Pleasure swelled outwards from it in fast ripples, again and again. They reached all the way up into his fizzing brain and down to the soles of feet. Once more, he swore incoherently to which Thomas responded by laughing more gleefully. James knew he could stop that by fucking him senseless, except —

“Ah, fu— I’m going to come too soon.”

“Do you want a cock ring?”

“Er, a — _ah_ — ”

“A strap?”

“ _Ah_ — a — ”

“A lasso?” 

“ _A la—_ ? May— _ah_ — maybe next time.”

“Hm. You’d better fuck me hard and fast then,” Thomas said as if it was the most obvious thing to do.

Having faced many, infinitely less enjoyable challenges than this one, James was determined to power through this. He sat up for better leverage, but his pace was still erratic. After slipping out one too many times, he drove in more deeply, knocking a surprised cry out of Thomas, who then threw his head back and unleashed a long, baritone moan that James swore he felt in his cock. This nearly tipped him over the edge, so he resolved to fuck Thomas as he suggested — hard and fast. The headboard started to bang horrifically against the wall, and Thomas was becoming just as loud — how much of this could the neighbors hear? — but, god, James couldn’t stop to care.

Even with the use of his hand, Thomas was nowhere near the finish line when James fell apart on top of him. Laughing again, Thomas maneuvered him onto his back and eased the toy out of him. After he brought himself off, he groaned contentedly while stretching to his full length like a cat. The ribbons of cum on his stomach caught the moonlight.

“Hungry” was the last thing James heard before he crashed asleep.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

James was woken by his subconscious alerting him to the fact that he hadn’t brushed his teeth. It was the middle of the night, and the other side of the bed was empty.

From the timestamps of Thomas’s texts, James knew that he, unconstrained by a regular schedule, kept odd hours with all sorts of odd thoughts that he never waited to share. Chances were he was heavily (and frustratedly) annotating some legislative draft or searching for a book he remembered a particularly profound passage from. And now that James was up, it was going to be impossible to ignore Thomas’s absence so he decided to seek him out. At the top of the stairs, the fresh memory of coming so hard he almost blacked out struck him. He ran a hand down his face and laughed disbelievingly at the fact that this was his life now.

The lights in the kitchen were on. Thomas was eating cheese over the sink, naked. He stabbed a morsel of Mimolette and held it out for James, who plucked it off the end of the knife with his teeth. He leaned against the counter and relished the savory tang as he chewed. It was the sort of thing he never did previously, but he couldn’t help it if cheese took on an unworldly quality around Thomas and had to appreciate it.

Thomas set the knife down to rifle through the refrigerator and cupboards, which screamed to be organized, and before James had swallowed, he dumped crackers, caviar, blinis, crème fraîche, grapes, a jar of rabbit rillettes, and dried figs on the counter in a chaotic picnic spread.

“I’m not that hungry.”

“In anticipation of your stay, I might have gotten a little carried away at the shops.” He popped the lid off the caviar tin with a grin and a 50p coin then dropped a mother-of-pearl spoon into the glistening mass.

“A little?”

“Oh, do let me spoil you, James.”

With Thomas’s eager assistance, James ate anyway, nibbled then devoured as Thomas did, their appetites only increasing. They washed everything down with vodka and took turns shocking each other with the press of the ice-cold bottle against bare skin. James was sure none of this was a good idea, but all he’d done was the sensible thing, which he often mistook for the smartest too, and had another swig before pulling Thomas to him. They could always clean up in the morning.

Thomas’s lips were shiny with fat and tasted of salt as they kissed against the pantry door. In spite of the creeping sleepiness that accompanied the feeling of fullness, James grew instantly hard. Thomas, well refueled, smiled against James’s mouth. In no way was he going to ignore _that_ , so he slid down James’s body to the floor and took his cock into his mouth in one fluid motion.

“I thought you’d want something sweet by now.”

The back of his head struck the door a little too hard when Thomas’s throat pulsated around him with stifled laughter.

To say that he was skilled at this was to call attention to the inadequacy of language. His lips, his tongue, his soft palate, all seemed to operate independently to enhance James’s pleasure in different but equally toe-curling ways, in tandem or simultaneously, reading and responding perfectly to every reaction from James’s body. Reduced to gasps and groans, language was certainly failing James completely at the moment.

Thomas looked up at him and drew off slowly in a show for James. His tongue dragged along the underside of the shaft then curved up into the slit. The wet sheen on his lips and James’s cock reflected the bright lights overhead, and James remembered that he was in a kitchen. Getting blown. _In a kitchen_. Everything was suddenly a bit too bright, and he could see a bit too clearly, so Thomas must have been seeing him too clearly as well. As if he perceived this line of thought via his penis, Thomas smiled again, reminding James that there was nothing of him he didn’t want to see.

Sensing his impending climax, Thomas moved more quickly and with less flourish. James brought his hand down on the counter in a resounding slap. He squeezed the edge like he could break off a piece as his orgasm punched a hoarse shout from him. When it finally released him, his body folded around Thomas’s head, panting and sagging.

“Oh, dessert,” Thomas said as he extricated himself from beneath James.

Wiping his mouth on his arm, he bound to his feet to fetch a chocolate pot de crème from the refrigerator. Seated on the floor together, he fed them generous spoonfuls of the cold silky custard. He swept the last bit out with his finger for James to finish off.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

A hand was floating up James’s thigh. He turned away from it and snuffled his complaint into the pillow, but the hand was persistent and chased his leg.

“Thomas,” he mumbled. “Tickles.”

“Yes, he does.”

He climbed over James’s prone body to press a loud, sucking kiss to his neck. Thomas’s clean skin was cool and dry, and James couldn’t resist smoothing his hands over it, his shoulders and down his back then up again. Touching invariably would lead to kissing, and he was wide awake now.

“Cheater.”

“What?”

“You showered. I haven’t had a chance to brush my teeth.”

“I went for a run. I was so ripe I would have made your eyes water.”

“Why didn’t you wake me? I would’ve joined you.”

“On my run? Or in the shower? Ohhh, but you were the perfect picture of peace, James. It would’ve been criminal to disturb you for something other than a matter of grave importance,” Thomas said between kisses to his chest and while his fingers played with his pubic hair.

“Well, I was trained to always be at the ready should such a matter arise.”

James hooked a leg around Thomas’s and threw him off, sending him tumbling to the other side of the bed. He trotted to the bathroom to brush his teeth and give his face a cursory wipe. He jumped at his own reflection in the mirror over the vanity.

When he returned to the bedroom he found Thomas splayed on the bed, arms folded above his head, his prick hard and beckoning. With the sun streaming through the roof window onto the white, rumpled sheets, he himself looked like a picture, slightly unreal, and James had the fleeting notion that maybe this was a dream too.

James crawled to Thomas and gave his neck a noisy sniff. His damp hair smelled of that citrusy shampoo that regularly scented his own pillows now.

After the frenzied fuck of last night, the morning called for a slow one, one that was more kissing than anything else. While their hands surveyed the familiar terrain of their bodies, their eyes dared each other to explore a little more and to kiss where their touch lingered. The friction between their bodies further sharpened their arousal, and the lazy slide of their shifting limbs became increasingly impatient grinding. Their kisses turned into nips and smears, and their laughter clipped breaths. With these hands intertwined and those around each other’s cocks, James watched the passing clouds in Thomas’s eyes as he came.

Shortly afterwards, James, early riser, rigorous minder of timetables and task lists, fell asleep again.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Thomas was already up by the time James awoke again. He was on the postage-stamp-sized patio watering Steven, his half-dead geranium bush. James joined him outside if only to tie his flapping wide-open robe shut.

“Breakfast?” James asked, pointing to the spoon-speared container of frighteningly purple ice cream in his hand.

“Ube and coconut.” Thomas fed him a mouthful. “And what would the Captain of my ship rather eat this morning?”

James had learned early on to answer this question with caution since Thomas wasn’t much of a cook. He did try though, as earnestly as he approached everything, to which a number of scorched pots could attest.

“Cereal.” Surely that wouldn’t see the kitchen plumed in black smoke.

Thomas deposited the ice cream next to the watering can and padded eagerly inside. James picked it up and dutifully took it with him to return to the freezer. Back in the kitchen, he gawped at Thomas’s concept of cereal — three containers of different kinds, a variety of fake milks, bananas, pomegranate and chia seeds, every berry in season, and a bag of mixed nuts.

“Coffee?”

“Yes. Do you have real milk though?”

James sifted through the documents scattered on the coffee table: multiple property records, an epically long RFP of bureaucrat-ese.

“Right. Oh — _damn_ , it’s gone off. I’ll run out and get some.”

“No, don’t. I can have — whichever of those.”

“Porridge doesn’t need milk. That’s technically cereal. I believe I have some.”

“Yeah, fine. And an espresso instead if that’s all right.”

“Aye, aye.”

“A double. Please.”

“A triple it is.”

“What are all these papers?”

“Oh, recent property purchases. They were made by the nominee company the Earl used to buy the house in New Providence Island and the pied-à-terre in New York.”

“But none of this is prime real estate exactly.”

“You buy when it’s cheap. And that RFP is for a government-sponsored improvement scheme for the same area those properties are located.”

“Ah. Let me guess. Peter initiated this RFP.”

“Want to wager that the selected proposal will be the one that benefits my father the most?” Thomas brought James’s espresso over and sat on the floor. “Whenever Peter’s run in Parliament ends, I’m sure he’ll have a well-deserved, well-paid position on some board waiting for him.”

“What are you thinking you might do about this?”

Thomas’s chest inflated as if he was preparing to release the torrent of ideas that must have been stewing inside of him for months. His mouth opened, but to James’s surprise none of them came forth. He sighed instead and rubbed his eyes.

“I — I don’t know. We can discuss this later. It’s a long weekend, and I have you to myself. So let’s just focus on us.” He folded his arms on James’s lap. “Actually I have a brilliant idea for what we can do. On Tuesday though.”

“Yeah? What?”

“Get married.”

“This again? I still haven’t decided if I even like you.”

“You certainly seemed to a few hours ago when I was giving you a wank.” He leaned away and scratched his stubbly chin in contemplation. “I suppose by that logic I should be giving you wanks all the time.”

“As enticing as that is, I’m not marrying you. Not…not yet anyway.”

James twinged at those last words. He was surprised that he could be someone who’d entertain the thought, never mind be in a position to have to do so. He couldn’t retract those words from the air, but if he said it to Thomas, there had to be truth to it. That he would indeed marry him.

“You can’t blame me for being impatient when I think about the prospect of sharing my life with you.”

“Then someone needs a lesson in patience.”

“And who, pray tell, will teach me this lesson? Or — perhaps I should be the one since Miranda got me a teaching job.”

“A job?”

“Sort of. A short course. Beginner’s Latin. Can you believe it?”

“That’s great. Really. You probably weren’t expecting to be teaching failing classics students basic Latin, but this is great news.”

“I didn’t know what to expect, but I am excited.”

James leaned forward and kissed the top of his head in congratulations. Thomas naturally took this as an opportunity to pull him down to the floor with him.

“Thomas,” James managed to interject between kisses.

“Hm?”

“Something’s burning.”

" _Shit_.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Thomas was glaring at the knot in his robe’s belt while he straddled James’s hips.

“What kind of ungodly knot is this?”

James grabbed a small loop and unraveled it effortlessly.

“Oh. That skill may come in handy.”

Thomas hastily shrugged the robe off with an excited giggle. He curled over James so that his erection rested on the groove of his sternum, nestled between the swells of his pecs. James raised his head to meet Thomas’s as he lowered his. He caught Thomas’s tongue between his lips and moaned at the wet and warm slide of it into his mouth and at the fingers tweaking his nipples. While their kisses deepened, Thomas pressed James back into the excessive amount of throw pillows that covered the sofa. He peeled his lips away in order to sit upright and began to shift experimentally, slowly bobbing up and down against James’s chest.

The corners of his mouth abruptly turned downwards. He was squirming. The head of his cock as it slipped in and out of the foreskin was too sensitive to bear the prickle of James’s chest hair. He stopped moving and looked down, seemingly trying to work out a solution to this problem.

Upon seeing Thomas’s visible frustration at not being able to titfuck him, it was James’s turn to laugh. Since no one or thing was exempt from Thomas’s persistence, he knew this would not be Thomas’s last attempt. As consolation, James encircled him with his hand, shielding it from any potential hair burn, and bid Thomas to continue. With his focus returned to his weekend goal of getting James off in every room of the house, Thomas reached behind himself to palm James over his underwear then slip his cock out. The motion of his hips guided the motion of his hand, stroking in a steady rhythm from base to tip.

They came relatively quietly but no less exhaustingly. After cleaning them up, it was Thomas who dozed off this time with his legs draped over James’s lap. James was tempted to join him — the sofa was big enough — but decided to continue enjoying the moment awake.

Thomas’s hair danced with a sudden breeze from the open patio door. It looked impossibly soft like all of Thomas despite how imposing his physique was, and all of Thomas begged to be touched.

James’s fingers skated up the length of his leg, the hair covering it gilded by the sun. He laid his hand flat on the uppermost part where his skin was the smoothest. Thomas sighed softly in response. Without opening his eyes, he took James’s hand and rested it on his genitals then fell back asleep. It wasn’t a request for another handjob, but a gesture of comfort maybe. Or protection. Or possession. If he did know Thomas, he’d guess probably all of them and more.

His robe, reknotted even more intricately, had fallen open to his hip, putting that mess of a tattoo on display. As James’s eye followed the blurry outline, he imagined the raggedy seaside tattoo shop he’d got it at and the hurried, furtive kisses he had shared with his schoolmate behind a sun-bleached shed. He also imagined what his life would have been like if that had been him instead. If a teenaged Thomas found himself in Padstow where he could have met a prickly young seaman who loved to read. James would have hated him on sight, and Thomas shouldn’t have noticed him since he would have ran with the other children of second-homers with their perfect hair and expensive educations. One day, after drunkenly strolling the high street like they owned the place, he and his friends would plant themselves on the beach where James was reading after a swim. Thomas wouldn’t so much see him but the book in his hands. _The Return of the Native_ or maybe something by Conrad. And that was how their unlikely romance would have started.

Fantasizing came easily around Thomas when James, ever the pragmatist, had resisted it before. This fantasy wasn’t substantially different from their actual story. Maybe he wished that, while their relationship was really just beginning, he’d already had decades of this. He had never had a proper partner and only ever stumbled into companionship. Low on his list of priorities, he usually left the work of maintaining one with him to the other party. It always seemed easier for them to do anyway. And now he had a boyfriend. 

Although calling Thomas — who watched old floor debates on YouTube for fun, who handily won a bet that he could bridal-carry James up the stairs to his flat, who barely tolerated wearing shirts that lacked buttons and a collar — a boy-anything was weird. He supposed he’d remain for now as simply “Thomas.”

James rested his head on the back of the sofa. The weight of drowsiness was settling over him like a blanket. A fly buzzed past Thomas’s face. He flinched, threw a hand over, and made an undignified snort before stilling again. The fly rounded the room then alighted upon a half-eaten cherry yogurt left on the coffee table.

“I love you.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

According to James’s internal clock, it was almost time for lunch. Taking into consideration how much they’d indulged last night, he restricted his rummaging to the crisper, which contained a veritable market’s worth of produce: rainbow chard, pattypan squash, striped beets, watermelon radishes, purple carrots, and hideously lumpen heirloom tomatoes. Nary a humble cucumber among them, James suspected they’d been purchased primarily for their aesthetic appeal.

What wasn’t to be eaten raw, he roasted or parboiled. What wasn’t chopped, he sliced on a mandoline that was still in its box when he unearthed it. He threw in torn pieces of stale bread that he’d toasted and a handful of pine nuts then tossed the lot in a shallot vinaigrette.

Yawning, Thomas looped his arms around his waist from behind.

“That looks amazing.”

“It’s a salad.”

Thomas kissed his cheek then released him with a generous squeeze of his ass. “You made it. Therefore it’s amazing. Because you’re amazing. What would you like to drink with it — a Riesling? A Sauvignon Blanc?”

“Water.”

Thomas spun around, holding a bottle of each. “But it’s the afternoon, is it not?”

James gave him the look he’d seen Miranda cast countless times in Thomas’s direction.

“Yes, yes. Water for me too.”

“Good to know I’m rubbing off on you.”

“James, you know you’re free to rub off on me as much as you want.”

Thomas swept the documents on the coffee table to the side and set down two large glasses filled to the brim with water.

As they ate, Thomas reeled off conjugations of verbs in every indicative tense after each swallow. He then moved onto translating the aphorisms of Marcus Aurelius that he knew by heart into Latin. James was hardly fluent but was able to pick up words here and there, sometimes enough to recognize which ones Thomas was reciting. A crooked grin spread across his face. He was obviously now saying something particularly naughty. This mystery soliloquy ended with an inexplicable kiss to James’s knee.

Full to nearly bursting, James couldn’t stand to eat anymore and he put his fork down. There was a lightness though when he should have been heavy, and he held onto the edge of the table as if he would float away.

“James? Is something the matter? You’re looking a bit peaky. Perhaps you’ve changed your mind about getting married?”

James exploded with laughter like he’d been holding it in for years. He laughed until he cried.

“Okay,” he finally said, nodding and wiping his eyes.

Thomas lit up. “Really?”

“No.”

“ _Arsehole_.”

“I may have changed my mind about the wine though.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>><<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

It was an unusually warm day, an early taste of summer, so they took the rest of the wine out on the patio. With his feet on James’s lap, Thomas was jotting down the names of urban planners, sustainability consultants, community developers in a notebook while expounding on Norwegian prison architecture and new restaurants he wanted to try. James was looking up how to properly care for geraniums on his phone.

The sun was getting low and the light blinding. Thomas stretched his arms above his head and shut his eyes. He undid the belt on his robe and let it fall open.

James gripped his ankle. “Thomas,” he said in a chiding voice.

“As an Englishman, I must endeavor to get as much vitamin D whenever possible. And no one can see me. I swear.”

James eyed him skeptically then the wall that ostensibly separated his house from the adjoining one.

“I’ve been in that house on many occasions. You can only see my roof.”

“Know your neighbor intimately, do you?”

“James, she’s a grandmother of seven whose holiday biscuit exchange Miranda and I attend every year.”

“That’s not an answer.”

So Thomas answered — by shoving his big toe into James’s armpit. Since the patio wasn’t much wider than the length of his leg, there was no escaping the wriggling appendage. Before he could fall out of his chair, James surrendered to Thomas’s sudden whim for outdoor nudity and was then able to right himself. After he caught his breath, he poured out another glass of wine. He figured it was an appropriate accompaniment to enjoying the view.

“No one can see you either, you know,” Thomas said, the wink implied in his tone.

Made bright by the sun, Thomas looked like he was lit from within. James on the other hand could feel the DNA in his cells crisping up like overcooked bacon. His clothes would stay on.

“James?”

“Hm?”

“Have you ever…”

“Have I ever what?” James asked as if he hadn’t immediately guessed what the rest of the question was.

“Have you ever…”

Thomas wiggled his shoulders suggestively. James shrugged in feigned ignorance, compelling Thomas out of his chair and onto his knees to demonstrate what he was insinuating. Hands spread on his thighs, they massaged and squeezed then traveled upwards, higher and higher.

“Not in front of Steven.”

“Oh, Steven’s seen it all.”

“Is that why it looks a mess?”

“What?” Thomas turned to look at the geranium bush with a furrowed brow. “You think he looks a mess?”

“It’s half-dead.”

Thomas unhooked his fingers from the waist of James’s jeans. His interest in cocksucking sidetracked, he crawled towards the plant. “Half-dead? What are you talking about?”

His fingers brushed some of the bare woody stems. There was a slight admission in the change of his facial expression.

“I used to water him assiduously when he was a wee thing. I shaded him when he got too hot. I also pruned him per the Earl’s gardener’s instructions. Then I started working long hours and traveling a lot. But no matter what, he blooms almost year round. I’d say that’s an unmistakable sign of life.”

He fingered some of the fuchsia flowers before plucking one. He placed it in James’s beard and leaned back against the wall to quietly admire him — adore him. James thought the color would suit Thomas better but didn’t move to remove it.

“What are you thinking about now?”

Thomas shaded his eyes and smiled. “Dinner.”

**Author's Note:**

> oh no thomas put the tomatoes in the fridge! (lol i don’t care.)
> 
> big, kitty-shaped thanks to [techieturnover](https://archiveofourown.org/users/techieturnover) for the invaluable edits. go read his fics.


End file.
